LET'S SHOOT SOME POOL by Paul Ivanushka(Click on image for larger view)

Paul Ivanushka says of his series,'Hill Pool Hall', "There is a challenge in photographing venues that are off the beaten path.

Many times the presence of a photographer is unwanted. Here, great shots rely less on photographic technique and more on blending in, keeping a low profile and ultimately gaining trust. Hill Pool Hall consisted of many trips and learning the etiquette of watching pool.

Coming from a working class background helped. I was interested in showing how men from the inner city relax in between the time they punch out at work and the time they sit down at the family dinner table. I wanted to capture the beauty in the game of pool, its tools, and the urban working class enjoy each other's company."

“There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph.”

– Robert Heinecken

THE SHOT by Paul Ivanushka(Click on image for larger view)

TOOLS OF THE TRADE by Paul Ivanushka(Click on image for larger view)

UNION STATION- CATCHING THE LIGHT by Qin Zhang(Click on image for larger view)

Qin Zhang says, "These pieces are parts of "California Dreaming" Project, where it started with the question of what makes people feel connected to a place, to nature, and to the world. It seems that we feel connected to something if it responds to our views, ideas, or to our "dreams". But there is only one world. So, are there commonalities in our dreams? This is what I am trying to explore in this project.

I am developing several series of works related to my interests and understanding about human intelligence. This is a process for me to further my understanding and raised awareness of certain issues related to human intelligence. Some of my works have more expressionist touch, where I will be expressing my emotions and thoughts. There are other pieces where I am mostly emotional neutral, and ask the viewers to investigate the psychological and emotional impacts the images will generate. The lines between them often are not very clear, as even in pieces where I am expressing my thoughts and emotions, often viewers’ can find their own interpretations."

Qin Zhang was born in China, and currently is living in Los Angeles. She is a self-taught abstract conceptual/minimalist artist currently working in photography. She is also a philosopher, focusing on human intelligence, and an inventor in Artificial Intelligence, automation, and other software fields. She is a patent attorney, and a mechanical engineer.
She also likes to sing and sometimes write poems.

UNION STATION- LOST AND FOUND by Qin Zhang(Click on image for larger view)

BOREDOM by Rob KraussHonorable Mention(Click on image for larger view)

Rob Krauss says, "Street photography has been my creative outlet since 2011. A passion for photojournalism turned me on to Street shooting and since then I have been enamored with exploring the streets and trying to catch momentary beauty. Street photography has taken me around the world and opened up my own neighborhood by teach me how to see.

I was taught photography at the age of 7, primarily through my Father and playing around with disposable film cameras. Through the years I saw photography as a stop gap, something to help with my childhood obsession with loss. If I could capture the perfect photo of something I would have it forever. As I grew, I became enamored with the art, seeing a beautiful composition out in ordinary life became so gratifying.

My aim is to capture emotion in fleeting moments, so as to connect with the subject I am shooting and thus provide the viewers of my images with that connection as well. I have traveled to many cities in the world to shoot Street Photography besides Los Angeles including New York, Tokyo, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Paris, London and Mexico City. I shoot primarily with the Ricoh GR.

I strive every time I go out and shoot to do more than the clichés, more than the shadow play, more than the geometry. I am pushing myself to see deeper and capture the nexus of the emotional and technically perfect moment in my photos."

THE CROWN AT SANTA ANITA PARK by Rob KraussHonorable Mention(Click on image for larger view)

CHECK THIS OUT by Ruth Grimes(Click on image for larger view)

Ruth Grimes says, "Urban photography has always thrilled me. Sometimes things happen so fast I have to hurry home to view my images on my computer screen to see if I captured something weird or interesting. Los Angeles is one of my favorite cities to photograph. LA is not the most majestic city, nor the prettiest, but when it comes to the people it has got to be the most colorful. Sadly, I don't get to LA often enough so I tend to explore cities closer to home; Santa Cruz, San Jose, San Francisco. I am finding these cities have lots of personality too.

The images here were taken for therapeutic purposes. In the light of continuous bad news stories, I have tried to photograph signs of a united humankind. I personally need to see people sharing, laughing, and loving.

I have been influenced by some of the greatest pioneers in street photography; William Eggleston, Saul Leiter, Trent Parke, and more recent street photographers such as Philip Brookman, Valerie Jardin, and Marie Laigneau. Black and white is rare for me."

Image- 'Check This Out':: I loved these two older ladies at the Women’s March in Santa Cruz earlier this year. I’d love to know what they were looking at on their tablet.

COOLIN DOWN by Ruth Grimes(Click on image for larger view)

Image 'Coolin Downl':: This was downtown San Jose in 109 degree heat. Rather than stay indoors, crowds of people, young and old, were out having fun.

LOVE UR BUM by Ruth Grimes(Click on image for larger view)

Image 'Love Ur Bum':: Los Angeles! Where else would a walk to the train station cross paths with hundreds of naked cyclists? This was my lucky day because it was also the day of LA's World Naked Bike Ride. Zooming in on this photo was quite a lot of fun.

CHUNGKING ROAD 1 by SameSource(Click on image for larger view)

SameSource says about 'Chung King Road', "Throughout the 20th Century, the iconic Fong’s sign on Chung King Road in Los Angeles’ Chinatown was featured in dozens of movies and televisions shows, and it even served as the backdrop for the bestselling novel, On Gold Mountain.

In 2014, I had the honor and pleasure of shooting the very last photos of this location, just hours before the sign was removed at dawn the following morning."

SameSource is a photographic artist with over two decades of professional experience recording images.

SameSource fine art photography spans both landscape and bodyscape, often exploring human sexuality and its relationship with art. With recent showings from the Musée du Louvre, Paris, France, to Art Basel, Miami Beach, SameSource was recognized in the international Lumiere Award for 2017. Coagula Gallery in Los Angeles included SameSource in its Ten Top Artists exhibition for 2016 in a show curated by Tulsa Kinney of Artillery Magazine.

SameSource work has been featured in The Huffington Post and American Photo magazine, and SameSource has twice been profiled by Silvershotz International Magazine of Contemporary Photography for the Apples and Apples Reinterpreted series. Fabrik magazine selected SameSource as one of thirty international photographers for a 2017 exhibition on street photography at Fathom Gallery in Los Angeles.

In addition to being featured in numerous photography books, SameSource is the author of three fine art photography books, Objects of Ruin (ISBN: 132013419X), Apples (ISBN: 136615598X), and Apples Reinterpreted (ISBN: 1366155858).

SameSource has origins in the rural Midwest. After studying music and philosophy in a liberal arts education, the artist went to Italy and became immersed in the works of the Renaissance. A return to the US brought the pursuit of graduate work in music and cinema, with an eventual arrival on the west coast via the USC film school. In addition to the full-time pursuit of photographic fine art, SameSource output has included notable works as a recording artist, writer, and filmmaker.

Learn more at SameSourceFineArt.com and follow SameSource on Facebook and Instagram; SameSourcePhoto on Twitter; SameSourcePhotography on SaatchiArt.

People look through flowers that now fill the florist stand beneath the iconic neon sign for Loback Meat Company at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. The neon sign dates to 1947 and has been preserved as part of the heritage of the community.

PIGGY BANK 1 by SameSource(Click on image for larger view)

Additional note about “Piggy Bank”:

A random passerby deposits money into Rachel, a brass piggy bank sculpture by Georgia Gerber collecting donations for the The Market Foundation in downtown Seattle.

I LOVE TO RIDE MY BICYCLE by SarahMarie Rooney

Sarah Rooney says, "I have always been interested in making photos on the street. I am naturally an outgoing and curious person and love capturing spontaneous moments; slices of time.

A year and a half ago I began to study street photography. Therefore, I am much more aware of why I am making the photos that I am making. I find that I make the same image, over and over, in different times and spaces. I have learned to listen to these images and now realize how much I am revealing about myself through people, animals, or objects that I find on the street.

The selection of photos that I am entering into this competition is a small selection of a series that I started at the Anti-Trump Protest, Downtown Los Angeles, November 14, 2016 and continue through November 2017. My images are metaphorical self portraits and often more moody and more vulnerable than I ever consider myself to portray in my real life. These images are the mirror to my soul."

Sarah Marie Rooney grew up in Connecticut and obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts, in Musical Theatre, from Syracuse University. After graduating Sarah continued her vocal studies in the UK and New Zealand and performed more than fifty solo vocal recitals and operas in the United States, Australia, the UK and New Zealand.

Sarah was also the Business Manager and Executive Theater Producer at BATS Theatre, Producer of Summer Shakespeare and Young and Hungry Theatre Company. In addition to performing and producing, Sarah taught and directed classes for theater, voice and stage at the Wellington Theatre for Performing Arts (NZ), Oregon Children’s Theatre and School (USA), and St. Mary’s in Sydney (AU). She also maintained a private singing studio for ten years.

Sarah obtained her MBA, with Merit, from Victoria University, Wellington NZ, and Georgia Institute of Technology. Sarah moved from Wellington to Atlanta Georgia in 2012 and spent two years working with Usher at his Non-Profit foundation, Usher’s New Look, as Director of Communications and Technology. In 2015 Sarah moved to Los Angeles and began her photography studies at the Los Angeles Center for Photography (LACP), where she is currently part of the One Year Professional Program.

Sarah was selected by Paula Tongarelli, Executive Director and Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography, to show work at the dnj Gallery for LACP’s Fourth Annual Member’s Exhibit. Sarah has also shown work in “On the Streets of Los Angeles” at the LACP gallery in Hollywood CA.

Sarah is a photographer for animal welfare, lobby and rescue organizations. Sarah photographs events for Best Friends Animal Society, NKLA (No Kill Los Angeles), Angel City Pit-bull Rescue, and Wags and Walks. Sarah lives in Manhattan Beach, CA with her furry, four-legged family (two rescue dogs and one rescue cat).

I typically side with self-portraits, but lately I've been searching for wild, intimate moments to shoot wherever my feet take me."

Husein grew up in a family whose prime idea of vacation centered around road trips: lots of beaches, sand dunes, many lakes, a few forests and handful of tide-pools sums up her youth.

Thankfully, her parents had a camera, and gave her and her sisters a disposable to document it all. This was the start to her documentation of life and things and places and clouds (so many clouds).Many pleas led to Sarah taking a photography class when she was 13. It was a bunch of weird kids venturing out to DTLA with their introverted teacher who last week taught them about aperture and shutter speed. Sarah found her niche.

High school introduced her to the world of journalism. Staff photographer turned into head photographer. A national award and a film project for class led to a consideration into a film degree. Four years later, she got that degree and bought herself an analog camera to celebrate. She's been slowly snapping and winding ever since.

Sasha Dylan Bell says, "My migration to the United States in 2014 acted like the opening of a faucet, exposing me to a rush of fresh surroundings and a new, diverse palette of people. The photographs in this collection represent some of this diversity, exploring humans in their every day environment, along with a focus on the environment itself.

As an artist I seek to stay present. I remind myself of this each time there is a quick lighting change, a technical challenge, or when I am inevitably caught unawares by unpredictable subjects on the street. This pursuit births often unpredictable results, sometimes good, often bad, but always earns me work that aims to be honest.

If the photographs in this collection have a mission, it is to capture and show people in those little moments of honesty and the environments that forge them.

This image, 'Afternoon, Mid-Town Manhattan',The chill of an early New York winter’s air clashes with the steam system on an up-market Manhattan street. A graceful, short-lived cloud carves through the afternoon sun, bouncing off a nearby building. Nearby pedestrians completely"

Originally a native of Australia, Sasha Dylan Bell studied filmmaking at the SAE College in Melbourne, along with the Cape Town Film & TV School in South Africa, where he focussed on film editing.

Over the last twelve years he has earned multiple award nominations for his editing work, including a Daytime Emmy & two Australian Screen Editors Guild (ASE) awards. Moviemaker Magazine named him one of "Five Editors To Watch" in 2012 and he has edited 6 feature films, along with almost three hundred television series, shorts, commercials & various short-form projects.

In addition to his editorial work, Sasha has directed dozens of music videos, short films, commercials and the occasional live television broadcast, where his taste for visual storytelling grew into an eye and passion for photography. Spending the past six years shooting street and portraiture, his focus is planted in capturing humanity and their environment.

In 2017 his photography work was shortlisted at the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London.

Green Shoes:
A band performer has takes a moment to get her photos taken in the venue’s photo booth prior to the gig.

BELL PARADISE by Sasha Dylan(Click on image for larger view)

Paradise:
As regular Venice Beach busker Nathan Pino performs as an eerie fog swallows the Californian coastline. The musician, framed by the ghostly Californian palm trees and beach’s homeless residents symbolizes the incongruity of Venice. A paradise, only for some.

BROADWAY BUS by Stephanie Sydney(Click on image for larger view)

Stephanie Sydney says, "Trained as a painter, I now paint with photographs. I use my own photographs and technology to compose my images. My work deals with creating a dialogue between extremes and hopes to address the fragility of life on this planet. I carry a camera wherever I go so I can capture whatever strikes me, often moments on the street.

I seek to create images that startle and intrigue. I am fascinated by the cycles of life: birth, aging, and death that apply to all and the relationships we have with our environment and the transient nature of all phenomenon. I often use images of construction and de-construction as metaphors of this cycle.

I am involved with finding a dialogue between opposites, or a common ground between extremes. Chaos and order. Old and new. Strength and fragility. Nature and man-made. Beauty and ugly. Large and small. Useful and discarded. Meaningful and meaningless. Solid and Fluid. Transient and permanent.

I also have a series of self portraits reflected in windows where only my hair is recognizable, taken around the world mostly in store windows, a woman everywhere and unseen."

Born in London, England, Stephanie moved to Malibu with her family as a teenager. Currently lives in Venice, California. While Stephanie was a painter from a very young age, because of her time constraints, she started exploring painting with a camera when she realized she could capture painterly like images on film, first double and triple exposures in the camera, then exploring abstrations and urban still lifes. This earlier work was well received and she was selected for “Pick of the Week” in the LA Weekly by Peter Frank for two shows.

With digital technology came new explorations of the transformative potential of imagery. She carries a camera wherever she goes because you never know when or where a photograph is waiting for you.
Stephanie studied art and photography at Santa Monica College and UCLA. She has taken dozens of classes at UCLA extension in photography, art theory and practice, and digital photography and printing. She studied with Laddie John Dill, David McDonald, Malaika Zweig, to name a few. She has traveled extensively through Europe, Japan, Greece and the U.S. to photograph and absorb the culture and art. She is currently devoting more time to her art photography at her studio in Santa Monica.

Her work is in several collections, including Banque BNP Paribais and Morgan Stanley in New York where they have 13 of her images. She has been featured on “Your Daily Photograph” and Lenscratch, widely distributed email subscriptions and blogs on photography.

Recently she has been included in shows in Glendale, Santa Monica, Venice, Chinatown, L.A. and West Hollywood. She was “Pick of the Week” in LA Weekly by Peter Frank for two shows. She received awards at the California Museum of Art, Santa Rosa, and at the Creative Art Center Gallery, juried by Jillian Coldiron in Burbank, and was the winner of the photography contest in Outdoor & Travel Photography magazine.

FLYING ON VENICE BEACH by Stephanie Sydney(Click on image for larger view)

READY ACTION ON VENICE BEACH by Stephanie Sydney(Click on image for larger view)

CRUSADER by Stephen Spiller

Stephen Spiller says, "Poets write of life as an endless exploration. But of what? And, to what end?

My work uses photography and text to address those questions, often asked, especially by the elderly, with the following different but compelling and poignant, words: “How did I get from there to here?” I have submitted three seemingly disparate images of people and cameos of their circumstances. But the works are actually threaded together by underscoring as common denominator that everyone, consciously or not, engages life employing a shared set of learned behaviors and feelings, i.e. we are humanized by our experiences, emotions and actions.

My goal then is to recognize, and thereby value, simple, ordinary moments, even just thoughts, of all kinds – as if to say: “Hey, look! What’s happened/happening is part of the larger, cohesive experience of me, not something to shed or discard as so much detritus.” If we could fully “own” our experiences, coupled with, for example, an ability to replay them as video in a personalized rear view mirror, then each road traveled could be a contextualized, vibrant parade of events defining what was explored and why. I hope, also, to announce that by being mindful one can better understand the hunger and vulnerability involved in searching for one’s own pleasures regardless of externally imposed criteria, such as money or other venerated symbols of happiness.

Perhaps I can summarize by saying that this on-going body of work makes tangible my abiding belief that days on a calendar are far better collected, and neatly preserved, as if in a suitcase rather than summarily x-ed off a calendar with black magic marker as they march on by.

What I know about art is self-taught. My classroom has always been the streets in countless cities where I photograph, shooting primarily on instinct.

My motivation is to learn how lives are shaped and individual passions formed. Central to my thinking is that people behave for reasons they don’t understand because they don’t explore issues surrounding identity formation.

I have also participated in panel discussions: Brooklyn, NY; online exhibitions: International Emerging Artists Dubai; digital group shows: Scope Miami Beach, Miami, Fl and See|Exhibition Space, New York, NY., and been published in Issues 2, 9, 11, and 12 of Musée Magazine."

Steven Lopez says, "Reluctant and Recalcitrant. Those were some of the descriptors I once used to self-describe my artistic endeavors.

They were just such a personal matter (as they often are). I’d order a batch of supplies every now and again - works were primarily watercolor & gouache, some featuring acrylic embellishments. 24x36 and 30x30 are most typical sizing. Then eventually they were nearly all acrylics. But they were really, just for me. On view at parties in my old apartment in Queens. I would get offers of $1000. But, it took me years to overcome that cliché separation anxiety.

A trip to London for my 25th birthday in 2001, became a pivotal point in the life. At that time, I found myself working in the Entertainment Industry, as most LA residents do at one point or another. Being in London, made me realize I was not pursuing the life I wanted.

Upon returning to Los Angeles, I researched Art & Design schools in the UK, and was accepted to the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design. I relocated to England in 2002, and achieved a BA (Hons.) in Design Management, September of 2005. I immediately began work in the field I had just graduated from – and began working as a Design Project Manager. I completed my first major contract Autumn of 2006.

I moved to New York City, March 2007. It was there, in my apartment on the Brooklyn / Queens border, I decided I needed to once again, pick up the paint brushes. It had been years since I actually painted…at least maybe 8 or 10? I remember feeling fairly uncertain and nearly embarrassed by those first several “practice runs.” But those sloppy, messy, quick and dirty (luckily they were only 12x18) acrylic practice runs, gave way to watercolor and gouache. Which I opted for to force myself to wait and watch and contemplate how the pigments interacted with each other. After days of soaking into the canvas, the pigments would take on a nearly plasticine shine. One by one, the works came. Single panels became a full-fledged series. 2 panels, became 4, then 6.

Maintaining my design career in Manhattan, I handled numerous Retail and Restaurant clients. I’ve opened projects in Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, Philadelphia and upwards of 8 restaurants and 9 retail establishments in Manhattan alone.

Among my most cherished openings were a restaurant inside Central Park (Le Pain Quotidien), a multi-million Euro couture showroom in Manhattan (Balenciaga) and the redesign and re-launch of an airport terminal (Boston Logan / Terminal C). In the midst of all these projects, the deadlines, budgets and incessant travel (including periodic travel to Paris for the Balenciaga project) one thing remained constant; my personal need to paint. Finding time and opportunity to appease the inner while maintaining the outer, pushed closer and closer to impossible.

I left New York City autumn 2014 and returned to the West Coast after 12 years away. But for the first time many years – I was without any readily available studio space. To substitute my need to paint, I focused on photography. What I realized early on was that my photography style certainly mimicked the abstracts I favored.
I took it as an opportunity to get reacquainted with my hometown. I made it a mission to find slants, curves and angles within the City of Angels, that typically go completely unnoticed. I sank myself head-first, thru the viewfinder into Abstract Photography.

I spent all of February 2017 in Mexico City. Drawing upon a month’s worth of photographic work, captured in the Mexican capital – I am in the beginning stages of producing a photography exhibition. The exhibition will highlight correlations between Mexico City and Los Angeles; their vast geographical command; 1st-2nd and 3rd World living conditions. Wealth, style, street art, respective entertainment industries. My goal is to have the show running MAY 2018.

Born MAY 1976 in the working and lower-middle class Latino districts of Northeast Los Angeles.

My family are from Bogota, Colombia. I speak English, Spanish and some French.
There are 96 pairs of Adidas in my personal footwear collection.

I have seen The Cure in concert 38 times in 15 different cities, 5 different countries and 2 different continents.

FEBRUARY 2017
Drawing upon a month’s worth of photographic work, captured in the Mexican capital – I am in the beginning stages of producing a photography exhibition. The exhibition will highlight correlations between Mexico City and Los Angeles; their vast geographical command; 1st-2nd and 3rd World living conditions. Wealth, style, street art, respective entertainment industries. My goal is to have the show running MAY 2018.

CREATIVE WORK CATALOGUE:

Long August AUGUST 2016
Mitigated Happenstance AUGUST 2016
I Was Listening to a lot of William Orbit APRIL 2015
Neo Gothic 1 & 2 MARCH 2015
Fever Dream 1 & 2 JANUARY 2015
Before & After: DNA JANUARY 2015
The Winter Behaviour FEBRUARY 2014
2 Humans SEPTEMBER 2013

GIRL WITH POMPOM CLUJ by Sylvia De Swaan(Click on image for larger view)

Sylvia de Swaan shares her images from Romania. She says, "I've spent several months in Romania in the course of my exploratory travels through Eastern Europe in the post communist era. I was born in northern Romania, a region which is now part of Ukraine. Presently I tend to travel more in Ukraine."

WEDDING CLUJ-NAPOCA ROMANIA by Sylvia de Swaan(Click on image for larger view)

BAPTISM DAY by Thouly DosiosFirst Place Winner

Thouly Dosios says, "In photography I discovered from early on an entryway to places I did not belong. In the foreign, I look for the familiar. I find comfort in the minute but vital ways that connect us all.

Walking the streets with my camera is when I am most present in the world and receptive to its innuendoes; the small, the fleeting, the invisible. I am drawn to the unknown and long for human connection. It can be a brief meeting of the eyes, or a long conversation. Oftentimes, it’s the mere act of making a picture that brings on an eternal bond with a complete stranger.

For the last 6 years I have been photographing the streets of Los Angeles, my adopted home. It’s a place I deeply love and respect, and one which constantly fascinates and challenges me. I strive to understand this complex city and capture an impression of its unique spirit. I’m drawn to the city’s openness, the co-existence of a multitude of cultures that both stand out triumphantly and mesh with each other, and the unspoken promise that everything is possible bringing here the tears, dreams and sweat of so many souls. I’m fascinated by the extremes and juxtapositions of this pulsating world nestled between wild tumultuous waters and the eerie stillness of the desert; ancient old traditions celebrated as pioneering thoughts take flight, immense wealth straddling along devastating poverty, a tireless merry-go-round of death and re-birth of dreams and identities. At the same time, I’m acutely aware of the cloud of loneliness that hangs over the sunny skies. Impermanence looms everywhere I turn. I’ve come to know well that a favorite street-corner may go up in smoke at any moment, and that, overnight, a beloved face may disappear."

Thouly Dosios holds a B.A. in Visual Studies from Harvard University and an M.F.A. in Film Directing from UCLA. Thouly’s short films have screened in numerous film festivals worldwide receiving many distinctions, including a spot as finalist for a Student Academy Award. She is currently completing the documentary short, The Rituals of Waiting, about the aspirations of women refugees living in refugee camps on the Greek island of Lesvos.

Thouly has photographed in the streets of Istanbul, Rome, Tokyo, Beijing, New Delhi, Varanasi and Oaxaca, among others.

For the last six years she has focused on documenting daily life in the streets of Los Angeles, and since 2014 she has been a member of the Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP). Thouly studied photography under Chis Killip and also interned with Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas.

She continued her photographic studies participating in intensive workshops with Mary Ellen Mark, Sam Abell, Julia Dean and Constantine Manos. Thouly’s photography has received recognition in international competitions worldwide, and has been showcased at group shows at the Umbrella Arts Gallery in New York, the dnj Gallery, The Perfect Exposure Gallery and LACP in Los Angeles, the Praxis Gallery & Photographic Arts Center in Minneapolis, the Black Box Gallery in Portland, and the PH21 Gallery in Budapest.

Thouly Dosios grew up in Athens, Greece, and currently lives in Los Angeles.